Mr. Speaker, prior to the member's speech, he asked a direct question of the Minister of Justice about how many people this would affect in the last quite number of years.
We all know the Minister of Justice. We have a lot of respect for him. We know him not to be an unintelligent man and certainly outside of this chamber is quite a pleasant individual. Yet he quite clearly was either unable or unwilling to put before this chamber the evidence to support his initiative.
The Conservatives have had five years in government. We have gone through two prorogations and quite a number of these bills, which have fancy headlines to them, yet the minister was unable or unwilling to put before the House the foundational evidence for the need for this legislation.
If it is true that we are functioning on kind of an evidence-free basis for the criminal law initiatives that the government wishes to take, if it is true it is unable or unwilling to put forward evidence, what is the basis for these various initiatives that have these headline-grabbing titles?